


Happy New Year

by whoneedsapublisher



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: F/F, New Years, Slightly older Nico and Maki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-26
Updated: 2017-02-26
Packaged: 2018-09-27 02:19:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9945875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoneedsapublisher/pseuds/whoneedsapublisher
Summary: A couple of years ago, Nico attempted to confess to Maki. Unfortunately, both of them were too stubborn to be the first to say "I Love You". On New Year's Eve, Nico finally gets tired of the stalemate.





	

It was New Year’s Eve, and Nico was lonely, nursing a headache, and utterly tired of the pointless contest she was stuck in.

It wasn’t exactly a secret that she and Maki had been interested in each other since some point during Maki’s first year. The problem is, both of them were simultaneously too proud and too insecure to make the first move, and so they circled each other warily, waiting for the other to be the one to confess. Nico, of course, broke first. Unfortunately, that just ended up making things worse.

In her defence, it wasn’t as if she was _practised_ at this okay? She and Maki had a sort of first-love thing going on, so it wasn’t like she had some long history of confessions to draw on. Obviously no one had ever confessed to her. Well, by now they had, but back before her first year of college, Nico’s confidence was somewhere between “zero” and “actively negative”. Failing at your dream for years only for someone else to sweep in and do what you’d been trying to do all along did that to you. Not that she resented Honoka- quite the opposite- but before her solo debut she was always afraid that she was only good enough to succeed as a background character.

And it was with that lack of confidence, and her coping mechanism of projecting confidence, that she failed utterly to confess her love and set herself up for a miserable New Year’s two years later.

It started off good. She’d finally gotten her courage up and her and Maki were alone in the clubroom. She still spent a lot of time in the clubroom despite not being at the school any more, a fact that Maki poked fun at often. But it wasn’t like she’d started at a college yet, so it wasn’t _that_ weird to spend some time there during the break. Anyway, the point was she was on familiar turf and alone with Maki, and got up the conviction to try to confess. As soon as she actually opened her mouth, though, things went wrong.

“So Maki, seeing anyone?” Problem one: if she was trying to be subtle, this was about as opaque as a well cleaned window. Problem two: why was she trying to be subtle instead of just spitting it out?

Maki looked flustered and started playing with her hair as she looked away. “Why do _you_ want to know?”

‘Because I’m in love with you! Make out with me!’ Nico urged her former self to say, but apparently she didn’t have the power to warp the past because she still remembered that what she’d actually said was. “Oh, just curious. I’m sure our cute little Maki has her eyes on someone, and maybe they’re not going to be single forever.” Maki’s eyes had narrowed at that, clearly taking it as a challenge. “Oh? Are you sure you’re not projecting, Nico? I don’t recall being in love with anyone.”  
  
“That’s a dangerous thing to say, Maki. What if they hear you?”

“I can’t imagine why they would. We’re alone here aren’t we?”

It had ended with her and Maki glaring daggers at each other, and Nico’s confidence even more shot. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe Maki really didn’t like her. Maybe Maki liked someone else. From that point on, it had been a battle of wills. Both of them dropped cute little hints that the other should hurry up, and both reacted by resolving not to make the first move. Nico had dated someone briefly in college to try and make Maki jealous, but the relationship had fallen apart almost immediately without any result.

Now, here they were and Nico was scowling at a text from Maki from yesterday. “Managed to confess yet, Nico? Almost another year gone.” Damnit, she was so done with this. Taking a deep breath, she typed in a message, hit send before she could stop herself, and flung the phone away as if it was on fire so she couldn’t delete it.

“Fine, you win. I’m sick of this game. I love you Maki, but I’m out of patience. Come kiss me at midnight or delete my number.”

For ten minutes, her heartbeat was so loud it drowned out everything else. After another five passed without any noise from the corner she’d thrown her phone into, her excitement was replaced with crushing disappointment. It was looking like Maki had decided to take option two. Nico would swear up and down that Maki had been in love with her at some point, but maybe her feelings had faded, and she was only still playing along out of stubbornness. Now that Nico had surrendered, Maki no longer had a stake in the game.

Nico grit her teeth and turned on the television, determined to distract herself with whatever film her favourite channel felt like inflicting on her. She would _not_ cry over Maki. She’d already thrown away her pride once for this crush, she wouldn’t let Maki destroy it completely.

* * *

Three hours of corny gangster films and silence from her phone later, Nico switched over to the New Year’s coverage. Fuck it. Even if she wasn’t getting kissed at midnight, she’d still enjoy the countdown. Ignoring the squeal of tires outside her window- who was driving around that fast at this hour anyway?- she settled in and waited for the announcer to start the ten count. Was someone late getting home or something? There was a lot of noise on the stairs. Must be someone close by, they were right outside her door.

“Ten!”

There was more noise outside as the count started. Actually, it kind of sounded like a key?

“Nine!”

Suddenly, Nico’s door burst open and slammed against the wall, causing her to jump and spin around…

“Eight!”

… just in time for something to fly into her with the force of a freight train, knocking her to the ground.

“Seven!”

“I was out of town,” Was that-

“Six!”

“you jerk!” … Maki?

“Five!”

“Pick up your phone!” Maki yelled, tears clear on her face in the glow of the TV.

“Four!”

Nico considered that it was possible throwing her phone into a corner might have dislodged the battery.

“Three!”

“Um… sorry?” Nico said, bewildered.

“Two!”

Maki made an angry noise and wiped her eyes.

“One!”

Nico stared up at her and her heart beat faster as she processed that Maki was here, now, for midnight.

“Zero!”

Maki leaned down and kissed Nico to the tinny sound of recorded fireworks.


End file.
